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A lightning bolt of fear struck the heart of the West Village yesterday as word spread of two terrifying assaults on women by a crazed sex fiend.

“It’s really frightening. I just moved here recently but now I don’t feel so safe,” said 23-year-old Michelle Ahoubim.

“Now I’m not going to go out by myself past 8 or 9 p.m. I’m going to make sure my boyfriend or someone else is with me and I am just going to be more aware of my surroundings.”

The chilling attacks on quiet side streets early Sunday morning were foiled only when the two victims managed to fight off their attacker, who left them bloodied and bruised.

“I felt he was following me and I turned around and our eyes met. He had an element of rage in his eyes. Something was not right,” one victim told The Post. “At that moment he just looked like a little punk who was going to follow me and annoy me.” But then he pounced.

A nearby surveillance camera caught a glimpse of the man moments before the harrowing attack, but his face was not visible, police said. A second video was too grainy to be useful, cops said.

“He was grabbing me around my neck and turning me around. I was wearing bike pants and he was tearing them at the back,” she continued.

“I was fighting for my life. It was like a super power took over. Your adrenaline gets going. I was getting angry. It was my reaction to being violated and it seemed like ammunition to me,” one of the victims told The Post.

She said she was recovering from the assault and just thankful she managed to get away without being raped or killed.

“I’m feeling liberated because I was able to walk away without getting severely harmed. You go through feeling vulnerable, violated and angry and you get to the point where you find inner strength because you didn’t weaken in the moment,” she said.

The plucky victim said she refused to allow the assault to terrify her.

“The message I want to convey is my spirit is not broken. I’m not going to allow this to change my routine. But I won’t be walking alone at night on a desolate street and I will be carrying pepper spray,” she said.

The would-be rapist first struck at around 2:15 a.m. on Bleecker Street not far from Sixth Avenue in front of Our Lady of Pompeii School.

As she fought him off, the attacker knocked her down and slammed her head against the pavement several times. She managed to get away and he fled as her screams alerted residents.

The craven criminal then moved on and attacked the second woman on nearby Barrow Street. She also managed to get away but only after he had knocked her down, pummeled her and tried to drag her into a basement down an outdoors staircase.

Her screams also alerted neighbors and sent the creep running.

“The immediacy of her screams was undeniable. After the third scream I ran outside,” said one neighbor. “She was hysterical. Blood was coming out of her nose. Her shoes were off. It’s so scary and frightening. There is no one on my block at night. It is very desolate.”